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Comedian-turned-political commentator Jon Stewart just unloaded on the Democratic establishment — and this time, the joke was on them. On his podcast, he didn’t just poke fun at party leadership. He practically lit them up as “lost,” echoing the frustrations of a Democratic Senate hopeful who says party elites haven’t so much as sent a courtesy text.
That candidate, Graham Platner, is running to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Thanks to Janet Mills stepping aside and suspending her own campaign, Platner is effectively the Democratic standard-bearer. You’d think that might earn him a phone call from the party brass.
According to Platner, while he’s heard from high-profile progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the people actually running the Democratic machine — the DNC and the DSCC — have been conspicuously absent.
“There has been more reach out from I would say more kind of like establishment folks,” Platner said, before dropping the kicker: “However, and this is the important part, not from like the DSCC, not from the DNC, nobody in the places of power remains interested.”
That’s when Stewart cut in with a blunt assessment: “But they’re lost, dude. They’re lost.”
Platner didn’t argue. “It’s so bad,” he shot back.
And here’s where the story veers from awkward to absurd. Platner says he’s not even asking for party insiders to roll out the red carpet — just basic curiosity. After all, he claims to be polling miles ahead.
“The thing that bothers me the most isn’t like — I’m not asking for you to be my friend,” he said. “But you should be curious because I’m polling 40 points ahead… I’ve never gotten a phone call. Like, no one’s ever reached out. I’ve never talked to anybody in leadership… no one has ever been interested in ever which is, like, kind of baffling.”
Baffling is one word for it. Political malpractice might be another.
Stewart offered his own theory for the cold shoulder — and it’s not exactly flattering. In his view, Democratic leadership operates with the imagination of a broken record, slotting candidates into just two neat boxes: buttoned-up moderate or wild-eyed progressive.
“I think it’s because they only know two stories,” Stewart said. “The two stories are this. You’re either a moderate Democrat or you’re a left-wing firebrand.”
And if you don’t fit either mold? Good luck getting noticed.
Stewart argued party elites seem to view candidates like Platner as politically radioactive — “the Democratic equivalent of a MAGA loyalist” — someone too risky to touch. But then he pointed out the obvious: spend five minutes actually talking to the guy, and that caricature falls apart.
“And then you talk to you for five minutes, you go, oh no, this is based in historical precedent,” Stewart explained. “It has a very literate and literary foundation to it. It has the foundation of lived experience. Like, they should be, again, viewing this as a Rosetta Stone that can help them translate.”
Instead, the party that prides itself on coalition-building appears to be ignoring one of its own — even when he’s leading the pack.
To be fair, Platner hasn’t had a squeaky-clean rollout. He faced backlash over a tattoo linked by critics to Nazi imagery — something he says he got during military service without knowing the association. He’s since had it covered. In today’s political climate, that kind of controversy is usually enough to trigger a full-court press from party handlers, if only for damage control.
